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That's not how lawsuits work. You don't sue someone for something they might do with zero indication that they will. When you buy a company headquartered in Cal

by pb7 4y ago

That's not how lawsuits work. You don't sue someone for something they might do with zero indication that they will. When you buy a company headquartered in California and elect to layoff half of it, you probably know your legal obligations.

rtkwe 4y ago
The person suing got their termination notification on 11/1 so I imaging they know more about what their termination actually entails than you or I do. Also Musk consistently pushes and oversteps the legal boundaries of what he can and can't do to get his way. Him being in charge of Twitter at all is because he was forced to execute a contract he willingly signed what makes you think he'll be more calmly compliant to laws?
- spoils19 4y ago
  pb7 is probably correct here, as they are in many things. Elon probably knows what he's doing, you don't get to that level of businessmen without making all the right decisions.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    > you don't get to that level of businessmen without making all the right decisions C'mon; he literally just tried desperately to get out of the Twitter deal that's the direct cause of these layoffs. Jeff Bezos's decisions about where to stick his weiner cost him tens of billions of dollars. No one makes "all the right decisions".
    - Domenic_S 4y ago
      People try and get out of deals all the time. It's a normal part of business. Edit: I take it many of you haven't been a part of a company that gets an offer that falls apart later, tried to buy/sell property, etc etc. Deals fall apart constantly, trying to get out of a deal isn't indicative of anything meaningful in and of itself. The only really unusual thing that happened in the Twitter deal was Twitter forcing the consummation.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - lovich 4y ago
        He waived his ability to do due diligence which is part of the normal business process that allows for backing out of a deal, because he was so confident in buying Twitter. Then he almost immediately tried backing out by claiming that things that would have been found out during the due diligence phase were a surprise to him(bots). It was forced because he left himself open to the deal being forced which was the idiotic mistake I think we can take it that you haven’t been part of many businesses that actually had to compete and operate with other businesses with equal leverage. The way a business negotiates when it’s getting bought out due to failing investor goals is a lot different than when the two opposing parties have equivalent leverage
        Domenic_S 4y ago
        He did not claim that bots were a surprise -- in fact, getting rid of bots was the premise of his offer in the first place. His issue with the bots was that he thought there was evidence that there were far more bots than claimed and Twitter was dodging his requests for info. There are some plausible arguments that even outside due diligence that bot problem would be meaningful, like that it's a materially adverse change. But that's all beside the point. These kind of antics happen all the time in the business world. The buyer threatens to back out, the seller takes them to court, they settle. LVMH & Tiffany comes to mind as a very recent example: it wasn't a due diligence argument there, either.
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      If I may white knight for one of the most powerful men in history for a moment: It's entirely possible that Bezos and his wife just drifted apart over the decades and separated amicably. And half of that fortune was always Mackenzie's from the start, that's how marriage works in the USA.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        They announced the divorce one day prior to his having an affair hitting the news cycle.
        bee_rider 4y ago
        I mean we don't know anything about the internals of their relationship, and "hitting the news cycle is" I guess just some arbitrary hassle from their point of view. We could suppose that they grew distant, they basically separated, he started a new relationship/affair, and then they formalized the divorce. Regardless, their money was realistically getting split anyway, so the decision of when to start the affair probably didn't cost him anything.
    - kodah 4y ago
      > Jeff Bezos's decisions about where to stick his weiner cost him tens of billions of dollars. People are allowed to want to divorce without it being referred to as "where he sticks his weiner". I think what grosses me out is that revenge porn was laid thickly on top of this that people just actively ignored.
      - paganel 4y ago
        Not a fan of Bezos by any means imaginable, but I think that the revenge porn thing that happened to him was the work of a state actor, more exactly of Saudi Arabia. Not saying that that makes it better, quite the contrary, just that most probably it wasn’t something personal, just a raison d’etat thing.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        > People are allowed to want to divorce without it being referred to as "where he sticks his weiner". No they're not. Getting a divorce doesn't give you the right to control how other people talk about your divorce. > I think what grosses me out is that revenge porn was laid thickly on top of this that people just actively ignored. People care about revenge porn because it hurts vulnerable people (i.e. the vast majority of us.) People don't give a shit about revenge porn about people who aren't vulnerable in any way.
        kodah 4y ago
        I'm not a fan of Bezos or his companies but these are objectively shitty takes.
        oska 4y ago
        > Getting a divorce doesn't give you the right to control how other people talk about your divorce. Obviously the discussion here is in terms of civility and respecting people's privacy, not 'control'.
        blooalien 4y ago
        > … "civility and respecting people's privacy" … God how I wish we still lived in that world…
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    This seems like a troll comment, given how disastrously Musk has handled the Twitter acquisition so far, and how many times he's been in trouble over mishandling things at Tesla and SpaceX.
  - lovich 4y ago
    That is a dangerous Calvinist line of thinking. If someone lies/steals/cheats their way to the top, you’d never notice because you are ascribing virtue to the person solely by their success
    - none_to_remain 4y ago
      Pray tell, do you consider any other religions dangerous?
      - lovich 4y ago
        You’ll notice I’ll called out the line of thinking, but yes, I could critique many other religions lines of thinking. Do you believe that any belief is rendered safe solely by being under the umbrella of a religion?
        pessimizer 4y ago
        Irrational beliefs are the only protected beliefs. If you can prove a belief could be seen as rational, it immediately loses protection.
        none_to_remain 4y ago
        I think it depends which religion
      - Tangurena2 4y ago
        Just the Protestant Work Ethic, which is pure Calvinism. > Central to Calvinist belief was the Elect, those persons chosen by God to inherit eternal life. All other people were damned and nothing could change that since God was unchanging. While it was impossible to know for certain whether a person was one of the Elect, one could have a sense of it based on his own personal encounters with God. Outwardly the only evidence was in the person's daily life and deeds, and success in one's worldly endeavors was a sign of possible inclusion as one of the Elect. A person who was indifferent and displayed idleness was most certainly one of the damned, but a person who was active, austere, and hard-working gave evidence to himself and to others that he was one of God's chosen ones (Tilgher, 1930). > Calvin taught that all men must work, even the rich, because to work was the will of God. It was the duty of men to serve as God's instruments here on earth, to reshape the world in the fashion of the Kingdom of God, and to become a part of the continuing process of His creation (Braude, 1975). Men were not to lust after wealth, possessions, or easy living, but were to reinvest the profits of their labor into financing further ventures. Earnings were thus to be reinvested over and over again, ad infinitum, or to the end of time (Lipset, 1990). Using profits to help others rise from a lessor level of subsistence violated God's will since persons could only demonstrate that they were among the Elect through their own labor (Lipset, 1990). > Selection of an occupation and pursuing it to achieve the greatest profit possible was considered by Calvinists to be a religious duty. Not only condoning, but encouraging the pursuit of unlimited profit was a radical departure from the Christian beliefs of the middle ages. In addition, unlike Luther, Calvin considered it appropriate to seek an occupation which would provide the greatest earnings possible. If that meant abandoning the family trade or profession, the change was not only allowed, but it was considered to be one's religious duty (Tilgher, 1930). http://workethic.coe.uga.edu/hpro.html http://workethic.coe.uga.edu/hpro.html
  - JakeTheAndroid 4y ago
    This is insane. We don't live in a meritocracy. The idea that someone only gets to that level of wealth and business ownership because they make good decisions or understand the laws or requirements isn't something you can demonstrate with any consistency. Deciding to simply trust that he is correct because of his status is a dangerous game to play.
- pb7 4y ago
  Clearly they don't: https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twitter-staff-jobs-axed-layoffs-2022-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twi...
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    This appears to only be the emails they sent out to the larger mass firing the originators of the lawsuit might have gotten different ones.
ceejayoz 4y ago
Sure you can. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment > It is a form of legally binding preventive by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal matter can ask a court to conclusively rule on and affirm the rights, duties, or obligations of one or more parties in a civil dispute (subject to any appeal).
selectodude 4y ago
In a drug-induced haze, Elon offered to buy Twitter at a price that was a weed meme and after sobering up, went on a full court press in the media to get out of his deal. It required a absolute shitpounding in the Delaware court of chancery for him to cop to the legal obligations he clearly wasn't aware of. What on earth has this man done to make you think that he knows his legal obligations?
- WilTimSon 4y ago
  He doesn't have to know them, he probably has enough management and lawyers on retainer to warn him about stuff like that. It's highly unlikely they haven't warned him about this.
  - selectodude 4y ago
    Of course he does. But he tends to just do shit and let his lawyers figure it out later. Speculating from his past behavior, he almost certainly just fired everybody and his lawyers were like "yeah, you can't just do that, you have to do x, y, and z as well". At least this time, it seems that he's going to actually listen to his lawyers and pay out the garden leave.
  - justapassenger 4y ago
    He’s always smartest guy in the room, and will do whatever he wants. He may share same future as previous smartest guys in the room.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    And you think he listens to them?
    - WilTimSon 4y ago
      Ehh, I assume he does when it comes to money. I might have a very low opinion of him but I'm holding out a tiny shred of good faith in him not being an actual lunatic. However unlikely that seems as time goes on.
adastra22 4y ago
That is exactly how lawsuits work. They can be used to get a legal judgement to force a party to Cary out a contract when there is reason to think the other party wouldn’t otherwise comply.
- pb7 4y ago
  >when there is reason to think the other party wouldn’t otherwise comply There is no reason to think that here: https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twitter-staff-jobs-axed-layoffs-2022-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twi...
sophacles 4y ago
> You don't sue someone for something they might do with zero indication that they will. Sure you do. Often the news reports this with the phrase "seeking injunction base on rumors that..."
dragontamer 4y ago
> When you buy a company Elon didn't even read the contract that bought the company. He spent the last 6 months in court trying to get out of the contract, not realizing it was ironclad.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  He was trying to get out of it because it was a stupid deal at that price, not because he couldn't understand a contract. He was trying to limit the dumb consequences of his dumb impulse. Failing at that, he might as well lean into it. He's got enough money to make billions of stupid mistakes, and this stupid mistake gave him ownership of his favorite thing. A favorite thing that incidentally gives him leverage against a US government desperate to control social media, a US government who is basically a business partner on every company he has. He's likely to extract a load of profit out of twitter through that, anyway, we just won't see it because it will show up in his other businesses in the form of contracts, favorable regulation, and favorable legislation.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    > not because he couldn't understand a contract The court case went on as long as it did (at great cost in lawyer time) because Elon thought he had a case. If Elon understood the contract, he wouldn't have wasted so much money on the courts and lawyers.

by pb7 4y ago

rtkwe 4y ago

The person suing got their termination notification on 11/1 so I imaging they know more about what their termination actually entails than you or I do. Also Musk consistently pushes and oversteps the legal boundaries of what he can and can't do to get his way. Him being in charge of Twitter at all is because he was forced to execute a contract he willingly signed what makes you think he'll be more calmly compliant to laws?

spoils19 4y ago
pb7 is probably correct here, as they are in many things. Elon probably knows what he's doing, you don't get to that level of businessmen without making all the right decisions.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > you don't get to that level of businessmen without making all the right decisions C'mon; he literally just tried desperately to get out of the Twitter deal that's the direct cause of these layoffs. Jeff Bezos's decisions about where to stick his weiner cost him tens of billions of dollars. No one makes "all the right decisions".
  - Domenic_S 4y ago
    People try and get out of deals all the time. It's a normal part of business. Edit: I take it many of you haven't been a part of a company that gets an offer that falls apart later, tried to buy/sell property, etc etc. Deals fall apart constantly, trying to get out of a deal isn't indicative of anything meaningful in and of itself. The only really unusual thing that happened in the Twitter deal was Twitter forcing the consummation.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - lovich 4y ago
      He waived his ability to do due diligence which is part of the normal business process that allows for backing out of a deal, because he was so confident in buying Twitter. Then he almost immediately tried backing out by claiming that things that would have been found out during the due diligence phase were a surprise to him(bots). It was forced because he left himself open to the deal being forced which was the idiotic mistake I think we can take it that you haven’t been part of many businesses that actually had to compete and operate with other businesses with equal leverage. The way a business negotiates when it’s getting bought out due to failing investor goals is a lot different than when the two opposing parties have equivalent leverage
      - Domenic_S 4y ago
        He did not claim that bots were a surprise -- in fact, getting rid of bots was the premise of his offer in the first place. His issue with the bots was that he thought there was evidence that there were far more bots than claimed and Twitter was dodging his requests for info. There are some plausible arguments that even outside due diligence that bot problem would be meaningful, like that it's a materially adverse change. But that's all beside the point. These kind of antics happen all the time in the business world. The buyer threatens to back out, the seller takes them to court, they settle. LVMH & Tiffany comes to mind as a very recent example: it wasn't a due diligence argument there, either.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    If I may white knight for one of the most powerful men in history for a moment: It's entirely possible that Bezos and his wife just drifted apart over the decades and separated amicably. And half of that fortune was always Mackenzie's from the start, that's how marriage works in the USA.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      They announced the divorce one day prior to his having an affair hitting the news cycle.
      - bee_rider 4y ago
        I mean we don't know anything about the internals of their relationship, and "hitting the news cycle is" I guess just some arbitrary hassle from their point of view. We could suppose that they grew distant, they basically separated, he started a new relationship/affair, and then they formalized the divorce. Regardless, their money was realistically getting split anyway, so the decision of when to start the affair probably didn't cost him anything.
  - kodah 4y ago
    > Jeff Bezos's decisions about where to stick his weiner cost him tens of billions of dollars. People are allowed to want to divorce without it being referred to as "where he sticks his weiner". I think what grosses me out is that revenge porn was laid thickly on top of this that people just actively ignored.
    - paganel 4y ago
      Not a fan of Bezos by any means imaginable, but I think that the revenge porn thing that happened to him was the work of a state actor, more exactly of Saudi Arabia. Not saying that that makes it better, quite the contrary, just that most probably it wasn’t something personal, just a raison d’etat thing.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      > People are allowed to want to divorce without it being referred to as "where he sticks his weiner". No they're not. Getting a divorce doesn't give you the right to control how other people talk about your divorce. > I think what grosses me out is that revenge porn was laid thickly on top of this that people just actively ignored. People care about revenge porn because it hurts vulnerable people (i.e. the vast majority of us.) People don't give a shit about revenge porn about people who aren't vulnerable in any way.
      - kodah 4y ago
        I'm not a fan of Bezos or his companies but these are objectively shitty takes.
      - oska 4y ago
        > Getting a divorce doesn't give you the right to control how other people talk about your divorce. Obviously the discussion here is in terms of civility and respecting people's privacy, not 'control'.
        blooalien 4y ago
        > … "civility and respecting people's privacy" … God how I wish we still lived in that world…
- pwinnski 4y ago
  This seems like a troll comment, given how disastrously Musk has handled the Twitter acquisition so far, and how many times he's been in trouble over mishandling things at Tesla and SpaceX.
- lovich 4y ago
  That is a dangerous Calvinist line of thinking. If someone lies/steals/cheats their way to the top, you’d never notice because you are ascribing virtue to the person solely by their success
  - none_to_remain 4y ago
    Pray tell, do you consider any other religions dangerous?
    - lovich 4y ago
      You’ll notice I’ll called out the line of thinking, but yes, I could critique many other religions lines of thinking. Do you believe that any belief is rendered safe solely by being under the umbrella of a religion?
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        Irrational beliefs are the only protected beliefs. If you can prove a belief could be seen as rational, it immediately loses protection.
      - none_to_remain 4y ago
        I think it depends which religion
    - Tangurena2 4y ago
      Just the Protestant Work Ethic, which is pure Calvinism. > Central to Calvinist belief was the Elect, those persons chosen by God to inherit eternal life. All other people were damned and nothing could change that since God was unchanging. While it was impossible to know for certain whether a person was one of the Elect, one could have a sense of it based on his own personal encounters with God. Outwardly the only evidence was in the person's daily life and deeds, and success in one's worldly endeavors was a sign of possible inclusion as one of the Elect. A person who was indifferent and displayed idleness was most certainly one of the damned, but a person who was active, austere, and hard-working gave evidence to himself and to others that he was one of God's chosen ones (Tilgher, 1930). > Calvin taught that all men must work, even the rich, because to work was the will of God. It was the duty of men to serve as God's instruments here on earth, to reshape the world in the fashion of the Kingdom of God, and to become a part of the continuing process of His creation (Braude, 1975). Men were not to lust after wealth, possessions, or easy living, but were to reinvest the profits of their labor into financing further ventures. Earnings were thus to be reinvested over and over again, ad infinitum, or to the end of time (Lipset, 1990). Using profits to help others rise from a lessor level of subsistence violated God's will since persons could only demonstrate that they were among the Elect through their own labor (Lipset, 1990). > Selection of an occupation and pursuing it to achieve the greatest profit possible was considered by Calvinists to be a religious duty. Not only condoning, but encouraging the pursuit of unlimited profit was a radical departure from the Christian beliefs of the middle ages. In addition, unlike Luther, Calvin considered it appropriate to seek an occupation which would provide the greatest earnings possible. If that meant abandoning the family trade or profession, the change was not only allowed, but it was considered to be one's religious duty (Tilgher, 1930). http://workethic.coe.uga.edu/hpro.html http://workethic.coe.uga.edu/hpro.html
- JakeTheAndroid 4y ago
  This is insane. We don't live in a meritocracy. The idea that someone only gets to that level of wealth and business ownership because they make good decisions or understand the laws or requirements isn't something you can demonstrate with any consistency. Deciding to simply trust that he is correct because of his status is a dangerous game to play.
pb7 4y ago
Clearly they don't: https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twitter-staff-jobs-axed-layoffs-2022-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twi...
- rtkwe 4y ago
  This appears to only be the emails they sent out to the larger mass firing the originators of the lawsuit might have gotten different ones.

ceejayoz 4y ago

Sure you can. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment > It is a form of legally binding preventive by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal matter can ask a court to conclusively rule on and affirm the rights, duties, or obligations of one or more parties in a civil dispute (subject to any appeal).

selectodude 4y ago

In a drug-induced haze, Elon offered to buy Twitter at a price that was a weed meme and after sobering up, went on a full court press in the media to get out of his deal. It required a absolute shitpounding in the Delaware court of chancery for him to cop to the legal obligations he clearly wasn't aware of. What on earth has this man done to make you think that he knows his legal obligations?

WilTimSon 4y ago
He doesn't have to know them, he probably has enough management and lawyers on retainer to warn him about stuff like that. It's highly unlikely they haven't warned him about this.
- selectodude 4y ago
  Of course he does. But he tends to just do shit and let his lawyers figure it out later. Speculating from his past behavior, he almost certainly just fired everybody and his lawyers were like "yeah, you can't just do that, you have to do x, y, and z as well". At least this time, it seems that he's going to actually listen to his lawyers and pay out the garden leave.
- justapassenger 4y ago
  He’s always smartest guy in the room, and will do whatever he wants. He may share same future as previous smartest guys in the room.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  And you think he listens to them?
  - WilTimSon 4y ago
    Ehh, I assume he does when it comes to money. I might have a very low opinion of him but I'm holding out a tiny shred of good faith in him not being an actual lunatic. However unlikely that seems as time goes on.

adastra22 4y ago

That is exactly how lawsuits work. They can be used to get a legal judgement to force a party to Cary out a contract when there is reason to think the other party wouldn’t otherwise comply.

pb7 4y ago
>when there is reason to think the other party wouldn’t otherwise comply There is no reason to think that here: https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twitter-staff-jobs-axed-layoffs-2022-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twi...

sophacles 4y ago

> You don't sue someone for something they might do with zero indication that they will. Sure you do. Often the news reports this with the phrase "seeking injunction base on rumors that..."

dragontamer 4y ago

> When you buy a company Elon didn't even read the contract that bought the company. He spent the last 6 months in court trying to get out of the contract, not realizing it was ironclad.

pessimizer 4y ago
He was trying to get out of it because it was a stupid deal at that price, not because he couldn't understand a contract. He was trying to limit the dumb consequences of his dumb impulse. Failing at that, he might as well lean into it. He's got enough money to make billions of stupid mistakes, and this stupid mistake gave him ownership of his favorite thing. A favorite thing that incidentally gives him leverage against a US government desperate to control social media, a US government who is basically a business partner on every company he has. He's likely to extract a load of profit out of twitter through that, anyway, we just won't see it because it will show up in his other businesses in the form of contracts, favorable regulation, and favorable legislation.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > not because he couldn't understand a contract The court case went on as long as it did (at great cost in lawyer time) because Elon thought he had a case. If Elon understood the contract, he wouldn't have wasted so much money on the courts and lawyers.